MY DESIGN JOURNEY

Creating Spaces with Minimalist and Purposeful Aesthetic

Architect Explores Spatial Choreography with Light and Volume

M.Arch., Harvard University, B.Arch., USC School of Architecture

Dan Brunn, FAIA, is the founder and principal of Dan Brunn Architecture, established in Los Angeles in 2005. His design philosophy integrates efficient minimalism, thoughtful spatial composition, and precise attention to detail, informed by contextual awareness, craftsmanship, and environmental stewardship. His work has garnered international recognition through industry awards, publications, and speaking engagements.

The firm's portfolio encompasses residential, retail, hospitality, and cultural projects, each characterized by sophisticated spatial arrangements that optimize natural light and volume. Drawing inspiration from the Bauhaus architecture of his native Tel Aviv, Brunn reinterprets Modernist principles through a contemporary minimalist lens. Architectural Digest recognized his emerging talent by naming him a "Rising Star." His work extends to furniture design, where he creates refined, highly functional solutions that complement contemporary living spaces.

Brunn has developed an impressive and diverse body of work, including acclaimed restaurants, private residences, and commercial spaces. His projects consistently demonstrate masterful material selection, innovative daylighting techniques, and seamless integration of building systems.

Brunn's design approach, which he terms "empathetic architecture," prioritizes creating spaces that honor their context while fostering meaningful interactions between occupants and their environment. "The focus has shifted from architectural precedent to the end user's experience," he notes. "The occupants are the true protagonists of these spaces."

Rooted in efficient minimalism, spatial choreography, and vibrant detail, Dan Brunn’s design ethos draws on context, craft, and environmental responsiveness. He’s been globally recognized for his thoughtful innovation through awards, publications, and invited appearances.

... The work Dan Brunn has done in the architectural field, of evolving how one perceives the spaces we live in, negotiate, and move through, proves he’s a leading mind.”

-Holger Hampf, President, BMW Designworks

Dan Brunn’s design work, spanning a broad range of typologies and scales, innovates and explores the unexpected, revealing the power of architecture to transform lives and introduce positive change to our urban fabric. Over the course of his career, Dan has developed a repertoire of engaging spaces grounded in a visceral sense of optimism and an intimate understanding of material, light, volume, and site.

DESIGN ETHOS: EMPATHETIC DESIGN AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Starting with client needs, Dan employs a spare but daring formal and spatial aesthetic, focusing on psychological comfort and personal wellbeing. He believes in the role of design to improve mental health, embracing the natural world and employing spaces of retreat and sanctuary along with those of wonder and curiosity. Philosophically his approach takes an optimistic outlook on the ability of design to improve individuals’ situations and contexts and more broadly uplift society.

Bold forms and eco-friendly techniques and materials are integral in setting apart Dan’s design language. Restrained in formal logic and foregoing frivolous expression, his rigorous approach combines familiar and unconventional inspirations to shape design that is both energizing and calming. Drawing on his intuitive understanding of spatial psychology and spirituality, his architecture embraces what he terms “Empathetic Design,” activating the senses and embracing the need for comfort, safety, inspiration, and reflection. Looking beyond the individual project, Dan incorporates climate-friendly, responsibly sourced solutions and creates public and private spaces that invigorate the urban realm.

CONTEXT-INSPIRED TECTONICS, CRAFT, AND TECHNOLOGY
Drawing upon his formative years in Tel Aviv, and inspired by its Bauhaus-influenced architectural heritage, his future-looking designs incorporate local building practices and cutting-edge building technologies, resulting in an imaginative yet restrained form of minimalism. As his practice has matured, he has honed his passion for craft, spatial composition, and materiality, resulting in increasingly innovative, impactful work.

Dan’s architectural strategies carefully manipulate volume, space, surface, and light, skillfully balancing opposing concepts: repose and surprise, texture and purity, compression and expansion, and light and dark. His designs pay careful attention to local ecology and climate, drawing their surroundings inside, weaving them into the narrative of his spaces. By holistically curating his selection of materials, exploring their interrelationships, and distilling details to their absolute essence, his work is grounded in both today’s context and centuries of architectural tradition.

DESIGN RECOGNITION AND GLOBAL IMPACT

Having founded his own firm 20 years ago, and now in his third decade of professional practice, Dan has garnered dozens of awards both locally and internationally, been featured by over 100 publications, and delivered dozens of lectures and keynote talks.

In 2015, Architectural Digest named Dan to its prestigious “10 Firms to Watch, Rising Stars” list. In 2018 Interior Design Magazine selected him to their “40@Forty,” and in 2020, he was selected for its “Best of Year Architect Honoree Award.” His work has also been celebrated in a range of lifestyle and business features in The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Adding to his profound reach, Dan has been sought to discuss his architecture and sustainable design efforts on national television programs like NBC’s Open House, and radio programs like Design and Architecture.

Dan’s influence both inside and outside the profession has been profound. Employing an inventive yet relatable approach, he has transformed lives, businesses, even entire neighborhoods. Via public appearances, tours, and media coverage he has proven that testing the boundaries of what is possible is both achievable and productive.

ACCOLADES & PRESS

  • ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST TOP TEN RISING STAR INTERIOR

  • DESIGN MAGAZINE BEST OF YEAR ARCHITECT INTERIOR

  • DESIGN BEST OF YEAR AWARDS

  • AIA-LOS ANGELES DESIGN AWARDS

  • AIA-CALIFORNIA DESIGN AWARD

  • AIA-NATIONAL DESIGN AWARD

  • AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE AWARDS

  • RED DOT DESIGN AWARD

  • ARCHITIZER+ DESIGN AWARD

  • LOS ANGELES BUSINESS JOURNAL DESIGN AWARDS

  • OCEAN HOME TOP 50 COASTAL ARCHITECT

EXPERIENCE AND RECOGNICTION

  • 20 plus years building in Los Angeles

  • One of the countries top residential coastal architects as recognized by Ocean Home

  • Recognized by Architectural Digest as one of the top architects

  • Nationally recognized by the AIA, Los Angeles Building Journal, Dwell, Los Angeles Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal

  • Completed homes in and around Los Angeles: beachfront and hillside

  • We’ve completed multiple homes in the jurisdiction of the CA Coastal Commission

  • Up and down the coast from Marina del Rey, Venice Beach, Santa Monica Beach, Pacific Palisades and Malibu

Dan Brunn’s design achievements reflect a philosophy that merges a “less is more” approach to embracing program, form, and space with a resonant sense of dynamism and detail. Having grown up in Tel Aviv, a city built on efficiency, and establishing his firm in Los Angeles, a city of multiplicity and transformation, Dan has always taken cues from the settings in which he lives and works. Melding craft, tectonics, and the environment to meet the needs of a project’s context is a recurring theme throughout his work.

CRAFT:
Purposeful Attention to Detail, Joinery, and Materiality
In an era so reliant on machines for thinking and measuring, Dan still seeks inspiration in the traditions of craft in architecture—careful attention to detail, structure, and holistic design— to create memorable, human-centered spaces that embrace light and shadow, texture and surface, and rhythm and scale. Juxtaposing natural and artificial light, solid and void, extension and contraction, he reduces his designs to their core expression. Dan also looks to techniques, materials, and finishes that inject life into space and mark change throughout the day.

Working collaboratively with companies like Baccarat, Caesarstone, Real Cedar and Concrete Collaborative, he has designed and developed new products and rethought conventional applications and manufacturing techniques. He’s employed broken crystal to create breathtaking sculpture, transformed scraps from quartz slabs into new furniture, elevated low grade wood siding into an artful residential finish, and worked with Concrete Collaborative to develop the terrazzo industry’s first permeable paver.

TECTONICS:
A Belief in Using Technical Means to Bring Nature Front and Center
Dan’s relationship with construction stems from years of field work, experimentation, and discovery. He has always been fascinated by hands-on experiment and unorthodox repurposing. At a young age, for instance, he began tinkering with technologies like fiber optics and developing a fluency with automotive mechanics. Whether developing practical applications for wood, enhancing steel fabrication methods, or harnessing computer aided manufacturing techniques, he has always taken a hands- on, physical approach to “making.” This technical fluency allows him to craft architecture that seamlessly elevates peoples’ experience of their natural surroundings. He further enhances this connection by employing careful attention to site, orientation, and landscape. His work demonstrates a clear balance between machine technology, the human hand, and the natural world.

ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIVENESS:
Balancing Nature’s Forces with Strategies to Reduce Energy and Resource Consumption
Growing up in Tel Aviv, where resources were carefully rationed, Dan learned to cherish natural assets; approaching sustainability with a sense of duty. He consistently finds innovative ways to incorporate responsible sourcing and sustainable methods into his projects, employing passive design strategies alongside efficient, low energy technologies, materials, and systems to achieve true net zero architecture. Beyond the regular practice of “green” material and product selection and specification, Dan challenges typical usage and applications, experiments with opportunities for greater building performance, and integrates life cycle benefits into his design thinking. He always focuses on energy conservation, for instance studying the sun’s path, local breezes, topography, and planting locations to determine the most effective site orientation. The result is a masterful blend of nature and technology that is both elegant and minimalist yet also inviting and inspiring for those who occupy his spaces.